Stuff I think up at the food court in the skyway. Also, stuff I think up in other places.

Buckshot Zumberge

Minor thing: Reporter Xiong has in various instances called the weapon a “semi-automatic shotgun.” This might be literally true, but in terms of context it’s a tad hyperbolic.

Police reports say the gun was a Browning 12 gauge autoloader, so it’s the A5, Browning’s only 12 gauge autoloader. This gun was designed by John Browning himself. Which is to also say, this model by now has a 100+ year history first as a waterfowling piece and 2nd as a riot shotgun, which is another of the A5’s configurations.

The A5 is in fact a semi-auto, but “semi-automatic shotgun” the way Xiong uses it is really not an enthusiasts’ term or an industry term or form factor term or stylebook term. And I think I’d just say off the top of my head that the utility you get out of shotguns is so different from a handgun or AR that as a matter of language it’s difficult or unnatural to make them analogous by virtue of a prefatory phrase like ‘semi-automatic’.

But this is what Xiong does, and it strikes me as a clumsy attempt to make this shotgun scarier by conflating it with the larger class of semi-automatic weapons for which the gun control debate is very discordant.

Why would a reporter do this? Argument can be made I think that reporter is merely trying to properly highlight all contemporary relevancies in the news, as this is what news writers do. But it could also be bias. Anyway, as I say, it was a minor thing.

Browning A5 holds 5 shotgun shells in typical configuration, one in chamber and 4 in under barrel tube magazine. Browning A5 is a quality piece, and it’s expensive. Browning is a premium brand, their MSRPs are very high.

In the current MN session there was a bill passed into law that allows for the disarming of people with domestic restraining orders. This was acknowledged by just about all as a good thing.

These crackpot Zumberges had their share of restraining orders over the years, and there was a current one in effect.

I’m not clear why this ability to disarm in concurrence with restraining order has to be / is limited to domestic partners. I am a 2A absolutist, but with that right I have some sense its natural there be a responsibility on the gun owner to not misbehave or even be controversial such that there are restraining orders invoked.

I’ve done a lot of shotgun shooting in my life, and I always wondered what the lethality of a game load on a person would be over the distance of say one neighborhood yard to another. Why? Because I’ve had the experience of being hit by shot in the field, ala like a friend of Dick Cheney’s might be. These never actually penetrated my outer wear, and it was a matter of shot that went up coming down. So this was safe shooting and there was definitely a loss of most load energy.

Buckshot is a different deal entirely. It’s defensive, combat ammunition. To be loaded up with it speaks to intention and malevolence. I don’t know how this Zumberge will be defended at trial, but the presence of buckshot in some ways makes a heat of passion argument harder.

New Brighton PD does not look particularly good in this. First night, everyone was wondering how it was the old beiotch wife hadn’t been arrested. It was instantly clear that she was an abettor.

I’m not sure retarded is the wrong word for the Zumberges, as loaded and out of fashion as that word is. While this guy was maybe capable of working and holding a job most of his life, it’s obvious there were some of society’s rules he just couldn’t learn.

If retarded is the wrong term, mentally ill is probably the right term. Not enough to be a trial defense, but these are people who are terribly mentally ill. It’s sad, whole thing is sad.